The number of sunscreens containing UVA filters doubled, to 70 percent of 2,000-plus products analyzed.

The number of sunscreens using oxybenzone, an endocrine-disrupting chemical, dropped by 19 percent.

Two of five sunscreens on the market in 2009 are judged to be safe and effective. Last year, just one in five sunscreens passed both the “safe” and “effective” tests.

Obviously, there’s plenty of room for improvement. Safer doesn’t mean safe. If you’re forking over $20 or $30 for a bottle of stuff that claims to block the sun’s harmful rays, it should block the sun. Knowing that your odds of buying an adequate product are two in five isn’t comforting.

Why, then, doesn’t the federal Food and Drug Administration make good on its plan to regulate sunscreens for safety, effectiveness and honesty in labeling? The agency’s efforts to make rules governing sunscreens must have set some kind of record.

One of the most bizarre documents in recent government history is the FDA’s tortured sunscreen timeline. It begins on August 25, 1978, when Jimmy Carter was in the White House, Godfather author Mario Puzo was on the cover of Time Magazine and Israeli Premier Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat won the Nobel Peace Prize for making progress toward resolving tensions in the Middle East.

It winds on and on, past the milestones, the decades past an August 27, 2007 proposal to have the FDA rate sunscreens for UVA effectiveness.

And then – nothing. We got nothing. Zero regulation out of the federal government.

So EWG keeps on trucking with its new, improved, more-popular-than-ever sunscreen guide. This year, we’ve broken down our list into suncreens, lip balms with SPF and moisturizers with SPF – because you don’t have to be at the beach to get too much sun.